Letters to the editor: 9/18/2011

Sep. 18, 2011

Why does public pick up tab for primaries?

In New York, to be able to vote in a primary, you have to be a registered member of that particular party. Primaries are expensive to run, and they are paid for by all taxpayers, even though most of those taxpayers can't vote in them.

My question is, why should the general public bear the cost of this voting, which is basically a private affair of the political parties concerned? If the general public doesn't pay for party conventions, which they are also not allowed to attend, why should they be forced to pay for other political events from which they are also excluded?

Seems to me that people who are involved in partisan politics are like baseball fans, and like baseball fans, they should have to pay for their own tickets.

Mike Reynolds

Tarrytown

Parking lot 'grant' never existed

Re "Nyack mayor needs to explain fed grant," Sept. 7 letter:

I want to refute the ludicrous charge that I rejected an $11 million federal grant for a parking study. No village Board of Trustees member has such authority.

In July 2009, Riverspace asked the board to file a joint application with U.S. Rep. Eliot Engel for an up to $8 million congressional appropriation for a parking garage.

I wrote the congressman opposing this joint application for several reasons. The garage could have gone no other place but behind Depew Manor, home to some of Nyack's elderly and most vulnerable people.

Nyack's Comprehensive Master Plan specifically advises against a parking garage; the village cannot adopt policies that contradict the master plan.

Applying for a garage that the village had not even decided it wanted or needed was "putting the cart before the horse." The village board made no application at all.

On Feb. 25, 2010, a new village board voted unanimously to apply for four federal appropriations: Streetscape; the Nyack Center; Memorial Park; and bulkheads at the Marina.

When Riverspace leaders later put in another request with Engel's office for the parking garage, I restated to the village board and to the congressman's chief of staff why I could not support a joint application.

At no time did a single village board member make a motion to change our federal funding priorities. How, therefore, was it possible for me to reject funds that the village never applied for?